Silly season makes for great memories

Sunday

Aug 19, 2012 at 6:00 AM

Sid McKeen Wry & Ginger

Former Gov. Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin, who’s 70 years old, is running for the U.S. Senate in his home state this year. The other day, visiting the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, he was asked if it’s true that he does 50 push-ups twice a day. Thompson promptly shed his coat, popped to the floor and ripped off 50 in less than a minute.

Reading about his feat online, I couldn’t help recalling some of the more off-beat happenings that occurred over the years when our editorial board at the Telegram & Gazette hosted candidates for high office. Nobody ever demonstrated their athleticism like Thompson, but there were some memorable moments along the way. A few cases in point:

— Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter, a long-shot candidate for his party’s nomination for president, wearing a small green button on his lapel that read simply, “Jimmy Carter President.” A lifelong collector of political buttons, I couldn’t pass up a rare opportunity. “I collect those,” I heard myself telling him pointedly, indicating his pin. “Here,” said Carter quickly, handing it over with a broad and toothy grin. Returning to my office after the meeting, I found Jody Powell, Carter’s colorful press secretary, feet sprawled across my desk, making phone calls to campaign operatives all over the country.

— George H.W. Bush, later vice president and president, spotting our cartoonist, Bob Sullivan, sketching across the table and asking, “Are you drawing my picture?” Bob nodded. “May I see it?” It’s not finished, he was told. Some days later, Bob sent him the original, and Bush responded with one of his famous thank-you notes.

— Ted Kennedy, who held the record for visits to our conference room as a senator and as a candidate for that office and for the presidency. On some occasions wide-eyed and energetic and on others bleary-eyed, tired and moody, often trailed by a large retinue of followers, sometimes by one or two, he was always acutely aware of our editorials’ assessments of his work. “Teddy’s coming in tomorrow,” someone would say, and the response often as not was, “I wonder which one?”

— Sargent Shriver, a Kennedy brother-in-law and the founding director of the Peace Corps, came by one day in 1976 as a candidate for his party’s presidential nomination. On the same day, the board also met briefly with the district court judge from a small Central Massachusetts town. After hearing from both, one editorial writer, waggishly polled others in the group to see which of the pair they thought would make the better president. Shriver was not at his best: A show of hands favored the judge.

— Two other hopefuls in the Democratic presidential primary that year also left their own distinct impressions. Morris (Mo) Udall, a likeable and lanky congressman from Arizona, declined to be interviewed by the board until an office boy could be found to run out to a drugstore and fetch him a vanilla milkshake, which he offered to share with others and proceeded to consume through a long straw while he answered the editors’ questions.

— Sen. Fred Harris of Oklahoma loudly whistled a few unidentifiable tunes as he made the long walk, alone, through the News Department, discombobulating reporters who had no idea who he was or where he was headed.

As you can see, this time of year especially, I miss watching politics up close and personal.